The thought process.. such an intensely complex and insanely intriguing thing. What is it that our are thoughts are effected by? Emotion, morals, situation, physical condition, possible objectives, urgency? Humans most definitely feel, they have emotions and those emotions generally effect a perpetual thought process.. this may not be quite the same for animals. I find myself pondering whether or not 'animal' (that is, other than human) emotion is more a sense of duty and familiarity. They don't know the world like a human would they only know what you expose them to, thus they can't feel any emotion for say, the neighbour who dies, or starving children in Africa.. but they sense if you are feeling it.. and sometimes an animal will cuddle up with you when it knows you're sad or hurt. I think they can sense emotion, and in order to sense it they have to feel some part of it, at least, logically speaking.

Some people feel there are a base set of emotions from which all others will extend.. this varies from person to person, but the ones I'll suggest here are: Now the question remains.. how do these emotions effect the thought process, and subsequently the resulting actions?

If someone is afraid, scared, they fear something.. that emotion is going to cause them to be very cautious, leary whether it be outwardly or not.. they'll probably hide things. Their thought process will probably be hectic and quite cluttered with a multitude of thoughts all at once, all stemming from the fact that they're feeling any one given emotion. Then the other things come into play.. the situation, physical condition, morals, the reason they're afraid in the first place.

This is almost a request of sorts.. an expression of want for more information, opinions. I want to know what it is that effects the thought process, how it does so.. and why. The thought process is a direct reflection on the personality of an individual, thus to understand why any one person might act as they do, it's essential to analyze the thought process they would be having.

Note of interest: This node was inspired by a conversation I had on IRC with my friend who is designing an rpg at present, and has reached the stage where he is trying to allocate personalities to the individual characters. We've had many a neat little discussion as of late.. ah, sweet, sweet game design.